The Death Of A Judge

The death about ten days ago of the judge Roberto Garcia Calvo has added a new twist to the ongoing saga concerning the Constitutional Court and it’s deliberations on the Catalan autonomy statute (Estatut). With the death of this judge, a very hard line conservative, the balance of power on the court has shifted away from those who support the attempts by the PP to achieve via the court what they couldn’t achieve via elections or in the Spanish parliament.

The tribunal is reaching the point where they are going to consider the PP’s objections to the Estatut. So the reaction of the PP to Garcia Calvo’s death was to demand that the government allow them to appoint an immediate replacement, given that the dead judge was one of “their” people. It was a hugely ironic demand coming from the PP, during the whole of the last parliament they systematically blocked all attempts to renew the main judicial institutions, hoping to preserve conservative dominance until they were returned to power again. Sadly for them, the elections in March put an end for the moment to such hopes. Not surprisingly, the government has rejected the PP’s demand. Meanwhile, the phantom seen quietly leaving by the back door is what used to be known as the separation of powers.

Garcia Calvo’s passing has led some to speculate that God may in fact be Catalan, as the late judge would certainly have attempted to strike down key provisions of the Estatut. In reality, any supreme entity that exists is more likely to be on the side of the Catalan socialists as they had most to lose from the Estatut’s failure. The nationalist parties would just use it as further evidence of the need for separation from the Spanish state. As an aside, it does also help us to understand the tolerance shown for crazy, extremist views by those over at Red Liberal. Another of their bloggers has suggested a possible reason for the sudden death of the judge, and strangely enough he’s written it in English. It’s obvious really, using Occam’s chain saw instead of his razor we reach the simple conclusion that Zapatero had the judge killed. What other explanation could there possibly be?